Accessing the Four Seasons Resort at Carmelo in Uruguay can be quite an experience. From Buenos Aires in Argentina you can catch a small four-seat plane across the River Platte, the world’s widest, landing on the other side at a sumptuous 5-star resort on the banks of the river.

The resort facilities here are fantastic, but the golf course, designed by American Randy Thompson, does have its issues with construction and maintenance. Clearly this was a low budget golf course, the holes occupy a former flood plain and Thompson incorporated plenty of water into the layout to enable him to be able to shape the property into something resembling an interesting course.

Sadly, despite some good moments and a few strategic holes, mostly Carmelo is disappointing. The course lacks originality and the use of mounds and the shaping and placement of the bunkering is problematic. There are several poor holes, and greens that are protected by ugly bunkering.

We had hopes for this course, but budgetary constraints clearly hampered designer Randy Thompson, who did his best to make the course at least playable and memorable for the clientele that visit the resort.